This first program of our summer film series looks at how the spoken and written word can give definition and power to lives. Three documentaries provide rich brush strokes to three nationally acknowledged and incredibly gifted writers. Gwendolyn Brooks’ poetry is inspired by her surroundings on Chicago’s south side; playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s short career arc includes the creation of A Raisin in the Sun, a play performed on Broadway about housing segregation in Chicago; and Toni Morrison’s struggles as a young novelist and mother bring context to her readings of her early works in a voice that makes the film images diminish at the sound of her words.
Come early to watch…..:
FAT ALBERT: WRITE A POEM, SHARE YOUR FEELINGS, 1979, 15min.
GWENDOLYN BROOKS, 1966, 29 min.
From WTTW’s The Creative Person series. Ms. Brooks reads from her verses and discusses her life and works. Photographic depictions of the atmosphere are the environment in which her poetry takes place.
LORRAINE HANSBERRY: THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN THE CREATION OF DRAMA, 1975, 35 min.
This film presents Chicago born writer Lorraine Hansberry’s artistic growth and unique vision expressed in her own words and in her own voice. It traces Ms. Hansberry’s life from her childhood in Chicago to her premature death at the age of 34, her student days at the University of Wisconsin, her work as a fledgling journalist in New York’s Harlem, her life as a Greenwich Village housewife, and her breakthrough as the first woman playwright to be produced on Broadway.
THE WRITER IN AMERICA: TONI MORRISON, 1978, 28 min.
Acclaimed novelist Toni Morrison explains the early impulses and obstacles she confronted as a young writer. She reads excerpts from The Bluest Eye, Sula and Song of Solomon.
Films will be presented digitally